About Me

I'm an elderly retired teacher who writes. Among my books are Ferradiddledumday (Appalachian version of the Rumpelstiltskin story), Stuck (middle grade paranormal novel), Patches on the Same Quilt (novel set in Franklin County, VA), Them That Go (an Appalachian novel), and several Kindle ebooks.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Poetic Junk Email

Disclaimer: Today’s entry isn’t worth reading.

One of the clues (among many blatant ones) that certain emails are junk is the random arrangement of words to form nonsense sentences—or parts thereof—before plugging the product/service that I have no intention of buying/using. Do these scammers really think anyone will take their junk ads seriously if they junk them up even more?

Being the recipient of random junk email, I couldn’t help but notice how the junkiness of it was less, er, junky if the said junk emails were set up as free verse.

Hence, I give you the Mushko’s Choice Selections of Odd and Alternative Poetry Found in my Junk Mail Box on December 6:

INDUSTRIAL MINERALS, INC.

I have known you not so very long,but Catriona, when we thought ita strange moment that I should beso near both ends of itat This carried me home again at once,where I found the mailsdrawn out behind,so that I could watch her unobserved.The knocking of her very chamber.—Owen Moyer

Is that poignant or what? Owen and Catriona must really have a thing going! At least he’s home. But why is her chamber knocking?

CHINA HEALTH MAGT CORP

avoid to shudderwhen I thought how littlethat jacket would avail him,consult about your father;for the way this talk has gone,an angry man marvelled to seeso much devotion as it used to bechanged into the feet and stoodwaiting her in a drunkenness of hope.—Herbert Blount

Herbert’s stuff is a bit more obscure but still heart-touching (if you’re into having someone finger your internal organs). The image of the angry father’s “drunkenness of hope” really grabs you, doesn’t it? Perhaps the poem needs an image of “sobriety of despair” to balance the emotions. I dunno.

From the middle of a Lengthy Plea:

Life so far has been very difficultbecause we have no papersnor means of livlihood

to reclaim the funds in questionsince I cannot do this myself.For no reason

should the funds be putin our family nameat any bank for now,

at least to avoid Governmentand other unforeseen enemies,I want this to be conducted

under secrecyuntil funds is in your possessions. —Mrs Sikhumbuzo Nkala

Nothing resonates quite like neediness! I always wonder, though, how folks with no funds, no place to stay, no nothing still manage to have access to the Internet. (Even if they use a library’s computer, they still need a library card. Can people without “papers” get a card?) Anyhow, Sikki’s plea has been outed and isn’t secret anymore. Not that it ever was.

Well, I hope y’all have enjoyed these bits of “found” poetry. Under no circumstances are you to attach cute pet pictures and forward them to everyone in your address books for inspiration (while asking that these folks forward to 10 of their friends, etc.) Especially don’t add any pleas for folks to donate to whatever designer disease is popular at the moment and/or to suggest creative uses of drier sheets and WD-40.

Just go find your own inspiration, OK?

Note: As winner of the 1996 "Worst Western" Division of the infamous Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (and my bad sentence will appear in their next anthology!), I am a nationally-ranked bad writer, and thus qualified to find bad poetry.